


everyone says, you just gotta let it go

by abandonedquiche (chlorinetrifluoride)



Series: Under(grad)tale [6]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Humantale, Blood, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide attempt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-23
Updated: 2016-05-23
Packaged: 2018-06-10 04:48:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6940456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chlorinetrifluoride/pseuds/abandonedquiche
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You learn a lot of things during blizzards. First off, snow fucking sucks more than anything on earth, although you knew that. Next, that your PI actually expects you in lab tomorrow, after you get examined, regardless of the weather conditions. And most confusingly, that a freshman you've only known for six weeks is willing to follow you to the medical center in the morning, just so you'll have company. </p><p>You are Chara and you just don't understand.</p><p>(this is a direct sequel to "and the piano has been drinking")</p>
            </blockquote>





	everyone says, you just gotta let it go

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PlumTea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PlumTea/gifts).



> okay, this is probably going to be more than one chapter. it has to be more than one chapter.  
> when will i update it?  
> *shrug emoji*

Since your ID card is in your pocket, you pelvic thrust at one of the side entrances to your dorm until the door unlocks. Sans snorts at you, and you’re just waiting for Frisk to make some kind of perverted comment (they have flirted with at least half of Waterfall), but they’ve gone nonverbal.

You have known them for maybe six weeks, and their pattern of speech is rather dichotomous to behold.

Either they’re so silent you sometimes forget that they’re there, or they’re unable to stop talking to you about whatever crosses their mind, like some kind of stream-of-consciousness narrative type shit. You’re not sure what causes the switch to flip, maybe you’ll find out with time.

“Let’s get inside before we freeze,” you tell the two of them, but a gentle, deep voice stops you in your tracks.

_“Howdy, Chara.”_

It’s your best friend.

_It’s Asriel._

A tall guy with an impressive physique, he leans against the nearest lamppost, his shoulder-length blond hair caked with snow. He’s got his usual musette bag slung over one shoulder. He’s wearing the sweater you made him, and a thin jacket over it.

You wonder how long he’s been there. The snow in his hair suggests “a while” at the very least. Then, you wonder if he saw your little move in front of the door, and your mouth narrows into one thin, embarrassed line.

_Why did you do that? Why did the one person whose opinion you actually respect have to be around to witness that?_

_What’s he even doing here?_

You repeat the last sentence to him.

"You left your medication in my room.”

Oh, yeah. You stayed over at his place last night, since you had to be in class at 9 AM, and Hotland Quad is way closer to the Core, where the bulk of the science facilities are located.

He rummages carefully through his bag, takes out two pill bottles, and places them in your hand.

You hold his hand for a second before you let it drop. "Thanks, man."

"Don’t worry about it."

You give this massive dork a hug, and try not to admonish him too soundly for… just waiting outside for you in the freezing cold for God knows how long like a giant dumbass. What if you'd used a different entrance? Yeah, this one is your favorite, but what-if?

When he hugs you back, he lifts you off your feet. You feel weightless. You have been friends with him for two years now, but you’re still not quite used to this sensation. The first time he did it, you punched him in the face.

In your defense, you are a terrible person.

“Why didn’t you just text me?” you ask him. That would have been the smarter thing to do.

“I did!” He pulls his phone out of his pocket, inputs the passcode and shows you about ten texts he’s sent you since 7 PM.

Great. You made him stand out here all this time because either 1. The commotion in Grillby’s was too loud for you to register the sound of your phone, 2. You left your phone on silent, or 3. both.

“I’m really sorry, Asriel.” He just smiles and shakes his head.

“It’s fine,” he tells you.

It is most definitely not fine. You take his hands and examine his fingertips - which have gone an angry cherry red - for frostbite, since not only did he forget to wear a proper coat, he forgot to wear gloves.

Then, you take out your own phone, and unsurprisingly, there are thirteen missed texts awaiting you. Ten from him, two from Papyrus inquiring as to the whereabouts of his brother, and one from Alphys telling you not to come into lab tomorrow until you get your INR checked at the medical center.

That might as well be a text from the doctor himself.

Alphys gives the orders in the lab more often than not. Gaster writes down instructions and directions for her to pass onto the rest of you. It works well enough, nobody’s been injured, nor has any major equipment been destroyed.

You’d asked Sans why he hadn’t been given this responsibility, and he’d countered that it’d make accusations of nepotism easier. That, and he was too goddamn lazy for such an undertaking. Still is.

Whenever Gaster enters the lab you work in, to ensure that all of you are on task (which is usually the case, barring Thursday night Mew Mew Kissy Cutie marathons), he smiles kindly at all of you, waves, and observes you silently. Truly a man of few words, you can count the times you’ve heard him speak more than four sentences on three fingers.

But still. Just what you need in the morning. Going to the medical center, aka the 9th circle of Hell. You scowl about this, before you remember that Asriel is still around, and you’ve made him freeze his ass off long enough due to your irresponsibility. You push your annoyance away.

You throw your hands up in frustration.

“Whatever. Let’s get inside.

You drag your merry gang of fools into the building, and direct them upstairs to your room. Really, you only need to direct Frisk. Asriel and Sans already know where they’re going. Frisk has gone back to gawking at everything in silent wonder, and even though this kid gets on your nerves sometimes, you suppress the fleeting urge to laugh at them, or to chide them for slowing you down.

“This is what the Waterfall dorms look like?” they ask, amazed. “So cool!”

You raise your eyebrows at them.

“No, this is what the garbage dump looks like,” you reply.

Your infrequent visits to the other dorms in Waterfall Quad have clued you into the fact that the people in this building are absolute pigs.

God, you hate this place. People leave their garbage everywhere, like their parents forgot to teach them manners.

Your rotating cast of parents taught you little more than how to duck, and yet you still manage to keep your area tidy.

Once, Asriel found a waterbug in the kitchen at the end of your wing and ran screaming for his life. You’d assumed someone had tried to fuck with him, which was a pretty dumb assumption considering this guy is like six foot three, and you live on the girls’ wing - (oh how you loathe it, but you’d probably hate living with guys even more) - but nope.

Not the case.

Just a waterbug chilling in the sink amid bits of food people had neglected to throw out, which had left Asriel screaming like a little girl.

You didn’t have the greatest home life before college, so you’d grown accustomed to the look of them. You’d shrugged at it and sent it to kingdom come with your left slipper. Asriel stared at you like you’d slain a dragon or some shit. You really did not understand the huge deal.

Yeah, sure waterbugs can fly, but it’s not like they bite, or are venomous in any way.

You even cleaned out the sink afterwards.

There must be at least fourteen people living in this wing, but only you, and some hyperactive sorority chick named Bobbi bother to clean the common areas regularly.

Undyne - who also lived in Waterfall Quad for her undergraduate years - insists that the garbage dump is a way better place to live than the building across the path, where the power used to fail on a regular basis due to faulty wiring, and nobody could see or do a goddamn thing for a several hours.

Back then, the fastest way to get an extension on a paper was to tell your professor you lived in that part of Waterfall. They’d issue you their condolences and give you an extra three days to complete the coursework.

While the lighting is better now than it was in Undyne’s time, someone really needs to renovate the buildings of this quad the way they have the others. Even The Ruins got a complete revamp, and they’re located in the middle of goddamn nowhere. Then again, The Ruins were falling apart even more badly than Waterfall, hence their nickname.

You sidestep a pile of random crap beside an overturned trashcan, steering Frisk so they’ll do the same. It’s not that they can’t see. They just frequently miss what happens to be right in front of them. Besides, you are the master of this domain. Garbage among garbage. You have learned the rules.

At least you have a single, and therefore no obnoxious roommate to deal with.

You didn’t think the administration would let you have a single again after May - in fact, you thought they’d expel you - but things turned out differently. Way differently. You spent a few days in ICU, another few days in yet another random hospital bed, and then a few weeks in the psychiatric ward, but no disciplinary charges were brought against you. You weren’t even billed for the cost of disinfecting your room.

You can’t help but think Asriel had a hand in this, since his father is the provost, or something equally ultra-influential. You could truly live ten thousand years and not deserve this kid’s friendship. He’s more suited for someone like Frisk, someone kind and not fucked in the head.

Oh, well.

Once you get Frisk to your room, you’re unsurprised to see Asriel putting on a pot of tea, having changed into a dry set of clothes that he must have left here. Meanwhile Sans busies himself with leaning against your bed frame and devouring a bowl of your economy-sized box of goldfish crackers. He stares you down with his _“U mad?”_ grin.

At least he’s voluntarily consuming carbs, and not dousing them in ketchup.

You don’t even bother to tell him that he should at least ask before he does that kind of thing, being that this is _your room_ , because you know Sans takes pride in annoying the shit out of you. You do the same to him. It's an ongoing contest.

So it’s best not to react. Then you remember something. You tap him on the shoulder.

“You rang, kiddo?”

“Papyrus texted me, asking where you were,” you tell him. “I suggest bringing him up to speed before he starts walking campus shouting for you.”

That one actually happened once when you were a freshman, and it was by far the most entertaining thing you’d ever witnessed. Oh Papyrus, truly a saint among men. Odes should be composed to him, long works of epic poetry lauding The Great Papyrus.

He’s in your year, and does not appear to possess an iota of common sense. Aside from being on the varsity basketball team, he’s got a job manning the front desk of the main building, which he appears to enjoy even more than he enjoys making lethal pasta.

You kind of like him, even if he is exceedingly loud. He’s not loud on purpose, he’s just 100% passionate about everything. Also, he’s a genuinely nice human being. You continue to be shocked how many of them you’ve encountered in college.

You tell Frisk to take a seat wherever. They nod, and end up lying on your floor, staring at the ceiling, and smiling at nothing in particular. Asriel looks from you to them, green eyes glinting with amusement.

He does a quick headcount once the tea is ready, gazing at the neatly washed mugs on your desk. He drums his fingers against the top of your mini-fridge, before asking, “Are we going to have enough cups?”

“I got this,” you tell him.

You have three mugs, and there are four people, but you know how to solve this issue. Sans has begun to doze off, head against your bedside drawers. You nudge him with your foot.

He blinks up at you, bleary-eyed and sour. “What now?”

“Do you want any tea?”

He makes a face and shakes his head emphatically. He can’t stand tea; apparently he had way too much of it in his childhood.

“Yeah, we have enough,” you say, picking up the mugs and handing them to Asriel one by one. Frisk continues to smile at the ceiling, although their eyes track your and Asriel’s movements as well. He fills each one with tea, and you pass the first mug to Frisk, who sits up to accept it.

“Thank you, um…” They scratch the back of their head and trail off nervously. “Um…”

“His name’s Asriel,” you inform them.

“Oh,” Frisk says. They stick out their hand. “Hi, Asriel. I’m Frisk.”

He shakes Frisk’s hand with the one that isn’t holding the teapot.

“Howdy, Frisk!”

Frisk blinks at him for a while, and doesn’t say anything. You turn back to them.

“Since you’re my guest and all, you get first dibs,” you say.

Then, remembering that Frisk has also been somewhat shortchanged in the common sense department, you add, “don’t drink it now, it’s too hot.”

They lower the mug from their lips. ‘

You take the last mug, the chipped one, and blow on your tea, able to recognize by the smell that he’s made the golden flower one again. It’s a little monotonous to drink this twice in three days, but seeing as the two types of tea in your room are this kind, and godawful generic black tea, he’s clearly made the right choice.

Asriel sits down on the edge of your bed, holding his cup in both hands, the bed-springs creaking under his weight. You sit down next to him.

Unlike you, Asriel has amassed an entire tea collection in his room, stacks of boxes covering two full shelves in his closet, including chocolate chai black tea, which he makes whenever you come over. You keep meaning to steal a few bags of it, it’s on a low enough shelf that you can reach, but then you forget, because his suitemates always make the most awful racket.  
  
Generally, you expend most of your energy yelling at them to shut the fuck up so you can think properly.

_(“Perhaps you could go about making that request a little more diplomatically?” Asriel asks._

_You give him your best “you have to be kidding me” looks._

_“That would require my having a shred of diplomacy.”)_

His roommate, Napstablook, is pretty okay, though. Some pale guy - paler than you, which is saying something - with dyed-white hair. He’s double majoring in music and music production. Three guesses as to what he wants to do after college.

He drinks a lot of hibiscus tea, and treats you with the utmost courtesy. He even made sandwiches for you the first time you came over. So he’s cool, even if he’s quiet, and generally a little sad. You can appreciate silence.

You can also appreciate listening to downtempo, lying on the floor, and “feeling like garbage” which seems to be his favorite activity.

Asriel even got him one of those planetarium projector lights for his last birthday, so now you listen to Napstablook’s mixes, and stare at a facsimile of the cosmos. Feeling like garbage in style.

While you think about this stuff, Frisk gets up to stare out the window.

By the time you notice, they turn back to you, their mouth set in a straight line.

“What happened?” you want to know.

They point outside.

“Snow.”

Well, no shit.

You get off your ass - goddamn your back aches tonight, probably as a result of having to run up and down several flights of stairs between afternoon classes - and stumble until you’re standing next to Frisk.

Apparently, they made an understatement.

Outside, a blizzard rages. You can’t even see the lampposts as anything but nebulous pinpricks through all the thickly falling snow. You wonder how many inches have accumulated on the ground so far.

One hand still holding the curtain open, you turn to face Asriel and Sans.

“Hey guys, get a load of this,” you say.

Asriel shakes Sans awake, much to his annoyance, and pulls him to his feet. Once they see what you’re seeing, they have similar reactions.

“Great, just what I needed.” Sans zips his hoodie up all the way, as if he’s already outside. “The blizzard of 201X.

“The snow hasn’t even finished melting from the last storm,” you point out.

“Gosh, yeah,” Asriel says, after taking another sip of tea. “And it’s only November!”

You lean back against your radiator, which eases some of the discomfort in your back, and contemplate what a pain in the ass tomorrow is going to be.

“Think the doctor is going to expect us in lab?” you ask.

“You already know the answer to that one,” Sans says, with an exhausted grin. Then, seriously, he adds, “if they can get the paths around campus mostly clear by the morning, I think he’ll give us an hour or two’s worth of clemency, but that’s about it.”

“So it depends on what time it stops snowing,” Asriel figures.

You shrug. “Doesn’t make a difference to me, since I gotta go to the medical center first.”

The color drains from Asriel’s face.

Whenever you mention the medical center, it’s like May all over again. You tug on a lock of his hair to bring him back to terra firma, standing on your tiptoes so you can almost see into his eyes.

“It’s not a big deal, Az. Just gotta get my INR checked.”

You let go of Asriel’s hair, and let your hand trail over to his locket. He gave you a similar one at the start of your sophomore year, and you’re never without it. Even now, it’s lies under your shirt. You touch the spot where it rests, and pull Asriel into yet another hug.

He begins to relax again. You’re glad.

“So, do you want me to go with you, Chara?”

You read between the lines of that question, and it translates to, “do you want me to make sure you actually go?”

While you hate the medical center, you know how much more Asriel hates it, and you don’t want him to have a panic attack or something of the sort while he’s waiting for you to get out. That’s actually the last thing you want. You’ve worried this boy enough for several lifetimes.

So you shake your head.

“Nah, not unless Gaster gives you the day free,” you reply.

Sans snorts. “The old man’s gonna give us a day off when hell freezes over.”

You gesture out the window, to the falling snow. “In case you haven’t noticed, _hell has frozen over_.”

Sans bursts out laughing, as does Asriel. Each time they look at each other, and to you, they laugh even harder.

Frisk, who doesn’t really know Dr. Gaster - at least you don’t think they do - giggles just the same.

After a quick consultation, the four of you unanimously decide that trying to leave Waterfall Quad before the morning would be a stupid ass idea. In fact, that’s what you personally say word-for-word.

Sans takes off his jacket and turns it into a makeshift pillow, which he throws down on the floor. Then, he lies down, grabs his coat, drapes it over himself, turns over, and declares that he’s created a bed.

“Wake me up if the room catches fire.”

“And in the case of the zombie apocalypse or sarin gas…?” you trail off.

_“I. Said. Fire.”_

Frisk’s giggles turn into actual laughter at that. You roll your eyes spectacularly.

Only Sans, the man capable of knocking out on any flat surface, would consider sleeping like that. At least the floor of your room is carpeted.

You dig your other set of linens out of the closet, which you keep around specifically for this purpose, and throw them to Asriel. He catches the pile one-handedly. You also throw him a pillow.

“Thank you, Chara!”

You’d offer him your bed, but Frisk is here.

And if they weren’t, it’s not like you two can sleep in the same bed anymore.

It has nothing to do with the sort of speculation Alphys and Sans make after too much wine.

Asriel has nightmares to rival your own, surprise, surprise, even though he's in therapy. Moreover, he sleeps like the fucking dead.

When his fists started flying as he shouted, “Where’s Chara! When can I see them?” you ducked because you knew you couldn’t wake him.

But that hadn’t stopped you from getting slugged once or twice. There were only so many places you can hide on a college standard-issue twin sized bed.

You could only make yourself so small, practiced as you were at the art.

Asriel apologized to you for five hours straight, after Alphys discreetly informed him how you got that black eye.

He'd hung his head in shame.

“Guess that’s the end of our sleepovers,” he said, after you demanded that he stop apologizing.

You shook your head. “Nah, it just means one of us has to take the floor.”

Invariably, you always end up with the bed, whether you’re in Waterfall or Hotland, because, as Asriel pointed out, he doesn’t have issues with pain

No, his shit’s all mental. And it’s all your fault.

Sans should have just called 911 when he found the note.

Then, Asriel wouldn’t have come over, taken a look at your room, which somewhat resembled a still from a horror flick, and decided to carry you, bundled up in your clean sheets, like a mummy, to the medical center.

Sans walked beside you two, able to keep pace with Asriel even though he was walking as fast as he could without breaking into a dead run.

“Boy, you really screwed this one up, kiddo,” Sans said to you.

You told him to fuck off. If you’d been capable of such a thing, you would have shouted it at him.

It seemed kind of surreal, honestly.

 _“Chara, Chara, Chara,”_ Asriel repeated, until your name resolved into nonsense syllables.

Campus flashed before you, a sea of greenery punctuated occasionally by concerned and bewildered faces. “Chara, _why?”_

“I’ve been tired for so long,” you rasped, swiping at your bloody nose with the back of your sleeve. “I think it’s time to go to sleep.”

You closed your eyes, and, of course, there was fear, running up and down your extremities like pins and needles. But there was also a profound feeling of relief. You could finally stop being tired.

You went into shock near the end, but you managed to register the feeling of Asriel’s tears falling onto your face before you got yanked into the land of worried clinicians and beeping monitors.

Come to think of it, Sans should have never found the note.

Maybe you shouldn’t have written it.

Maybe you shouldn’t have stolen the rat poison from your foster father's basement in the first place.

Maybe you should have opened up to Asriel, but you didn’t want to alarm him.

No. Instead of alarming him, you scarred him for life.

This is why nobody should let you make plans.

“So you’re bunking with smiley trashbag on the floor,” you tell Asriel.

He snorts.

The vague lump in the corner moves slightly.

“I’m still awake, Chara,” Sans says, voice muffled by his jacket.

“Yeah, so?”

Oh, the fun you two have when you’re in close proximity.

You turn to Frisk again.

“You can have my bed, if you want.”

They nod gently at first, but then stare at you, puzzled.

“Where are you going to sleep?”

You point to the floor. “S’no big deal, freshman. I promise.”

They insist on taking the floor, since this is your room and everything.

You insist on taking the floor because they’re your guest, and are nowhere near as annoying as Sans.

You two bicker back and forth about it until Sans ends the argument in a way that only he can.

“God, just take the bed and sleep with each other, it’s not that hard.”

Upon realizing the sort of statement he’s made, he attempts to amend it, but it’s already far too late.

Frisk laughs so hard that no sound comes out, Asriel stares at Sans with _I-can’t-believe-you-just-said-that eyes_ , and you, you cover your face with your hands, absolutely mortified. You’re never inviting Sans anywhere again. He is officially a persona-non-grata. He probably did that shit on purpose.

“I guess we could share a bed,” you murmur to Frisk, once you’ve recovered a small part of your dignity. “Just don’t elbow me or anything.”

You go back into your closet again, and grab some pajamas for yourself. As an afterthought, you pull your most oversized sweater off a hanger and toss it to Frisk. It’ll probably fit them reasonably well. You find a pair of boxers that you bought online, in sophomore year, only to realize they were far too big for you once they arrived.  
  
“You should probably get out of those wet things, and let them dry on the radiator.”

“Kay.”

Even if their clothes dry, which they will, you can’t exactly let them go home in the attire they arrived in. They’ll almost certainly get sick. You hum thoughtfully for a minute.

Then, you come up with an idea.

Bobbi and Frisk look as if they might be the same size, although, at 5’7”, Bob’s got an inch or two on them.

You can ask her if she has any proper winter wear that Frisk can borrow so they don’t become an icicle trying to get back home later. Bobbie will almost certainly agree to this with her usual enthusiasm, and probably insist on making Frisk breakfast or something.

So you’ll go find her in the morning, assuming she’s not hanging out with the rest of the Temmie Gang, which you try to avoid on principle. With their powers combined, they are captain headache. You take a modicum of solace in the fact that you probably would have heard their music from down the hall, if the full group (or even two of them) were around.

You can deal with Bobbi because there’s only one of her, she helps you clean, she’s pretty smart when you get down to it, and she came to visit you in the hospital. She and Ragel, the dude living downstairs in with the other guys, who got a stupid haircut that made his head look like the top of a mushroom. He's pretty cool.

They came by a few times. A lot of people came by a few times.

You didn’t know people in your dorm actually _cared_ for you like that. You didn’t know people in general were _capable_ of caring about you like that.

You just can’t understand.

You’d like to, but it’s like a foreign language.

Nonetheless, you grab your phone off your desk and send a quick text.

802: Hey Bob.  
802: You awake?  
959: sorta like but  
959: i got too stoned with ragel so im going 2 knock out pretty soon  
959: whats going on  
959: are u ok  
802: Yes, I am fine. I need to talk to you tomorrow morning about something.  
959: ngl that makes me nervous  
802: It’s not too heavy of a matter. Don’t worry. I would tell you if it were.  
959: ok  
959: night  
959: if i dont answer in the morning just keep banging on the door until i open it  
802: Will do, most certainly.

You put your phone back on the desk.

“C’mon, let’s shower quick,” you tell Frisk.

You are not about to let anyone, including yourself, lie down in your bed without a shower. You enjoy the sensation and color of clean, pristine sheets.

You put on your shower flip-flops and hand Frisk your other pair, along with a spare towel. Their feet are bigger than yours, as befitting your height difference. So they look almost comical wearing the shoes.

“Why’re we wearing flip-flops to shower?” Frisk asks.

“Because the floors of the stalls are comprised of matted hair, permanent grime, soap scum, and an assorted array of questionable ooze.”

_“Really?”_

You take them into the bathroom, pull the curtain on the nearest stall, and point down at the drain. Their expression upon realizing you were not exaggerating in the slightest could best be described as “frowning loudly”.

You undress fast, only slowing down once you’re wearing nothing but your binder and your underwear. You remove the binder, and hang it on the hook of a shower stall.

Then, you survey your reflection carefully, raising your arms to gaze at them. You jump up so you can sit on the sink to check your legs. Sure enough, there’s that same bruise you’ve had on your left leg since Sunday, and if anything, it looks even uglier than it did on Wednesday.

You’re not sure whether several of the dots on your arms are freckles or petechiae. At least ten of them look suspect.

No bruising around your abdomen, you reflect. That’s a good sign. The fact that you haven’t visibly been passing any blood is also a good sign. But your INR will almost certainly be elevated above normal tomorrow.

Whether that means an increased dose of phytonadione, or keeping you in the hospital for observation remains to be seen. You hope it's not the latter. You have finals to study for. 

You don’t realize Frisk has been staring at you the whole time until you turn and catch them staring. But they’re not looking at you like you’re some kind of weirdo, they seem genuinely concerned.

“What are you doing?” they ask. “Are you okay?”

No, you are not okay.

Sans was right. You shouldn’t have drunk so much tonight, that was a stupid, self-destructive “before May” type idea. You’ve been trying to shy away from those to the best of your ability, but making good choices after so many years of terrible ones is a lot harder than it looks.

(You don't think the drinks affected anything that much, but you still hate yourself for it.)

You need to keep your body in proper shape if you want it to last longer.

Isn’t that ironic?

You were so determined to destroy yourself last semester. And then, after coming close enough to stare death in the face with your bloodshot eyes, sunken cheeks, and bloody mouth, you were finally terrified of dying.

You could tell Asriel about your continued coagulopathy, but chances are he’d jump up, scared shitless once more, and attempt to carry you to the medical center in the snow.

You don’t think the situation warrants it. Maybe you could ask Sans for his opinion, but that might also awaken Asriel.

You will not concern Asriel without good reason. You’ve been terrible enough to and for him as it is.

“Are you okay?” Frisk repeats, a little more loudly.

You won’t burden them with the whole story, at least not now, in their freshman year. Maybe they’ll hear about it from someone else later, but not from you. So you pinch the bridge of your nose, a nervous habit, and search for some approximation of the truth.

“My blood doesn’t clot right sometimes, so I’m checking myself to make sure I’m not bleeding seriously.”

Frisk does not seem alarmed about this in the least.

“Oh.” They shake their hair out of their eyes. “That makes sense.”

They take the black jumbo hair tie they always have looped around their wrist - which they generally snap against their arm when they’re agitated, twirl around on their pen when they’re bored, and pull taut and gently release when they’re stressed - and use it to actually tie their hair back. For the first time, you can see their entire face.

“D’you want help checking yourself?” they ask.

You wait for them to make some pervy comment about your clothing, or lack thereof, but alas, they sound completely earnest about this.

Frisk never fails to astonish you.

After a tense pause of either ten seconds or three thousand years, you give them a small nod of assent.

“Wait, really?” they ask.

“If I’m not bothering you. When you get tired, you can stop,” you tell them. “I can do this myself.”

Still, you ask them to check your back, and the backs of your legs for bruising or petechiae.

“Petechiae?”

“They’re these little reddish purple spots,” you respond, keeping your eyes trained straight ahead, trying not to think too much. “They’re like tiny bruises, but they’re not actually bruises.”

You don’t have time to explain the difference.

They find a few of the latter on your right shoulder, and they’re a decent size. You turn, in front of the mirror, so you can see them. Then, you shrug. Not life-threatening. You tell Frisk this, and they seem relieved.

Then, you recall your earlier back pain, and wonder if that could be due to hemorrhaging. What you’ve seen so far is mild enough that it can wait until the morning.

However, internal bleeding severe enough to cause you pain cannot.

_(You think you are above consequences, Chara?)_

So you tell Frisk to check your lower back as carefully as they can.

They do, spending more time on it than you’d expect from a freshman with a self-proclaimed short attention span.

You try not to play it cool the entire time. You try to act like you're not terrified.

“I don’t see any bruises there,” they finally say to you, standing up.

Once they’re done, you stand in the mirror again and palpate your abdomen. No pain there. No increase in pain when you prod at the area where the discomfort in your back started out.

Not that this means you’re out of the woods, but you’re at least willing to wait until the sun comes up and the campus roads have (hopefully) been shoveled out before you find out if you're really and truly fucked.

“Thank you, Frisk,” you murmur, giving them a weak smile.

They nod and tell you that it’s no problem, they were happy to be of assistance.

“Is that why you have to go to the medical center tomorrow?”

At the very least, you can tell the truth where that’s concerned.

“Yeah, pretty much. Gotta get my blood tested.” You shudder, trying not to think too much about it. “I swear, I hate the medical center more than everything I’ve ever hated combined.”

“That is, admittedly, a whole lot of hate,” Frisk points out.

“Truly.”

“It cannot be quantified without breaking state of the art computing equipment.”

In spite of yourself, you laugh hard enough that your sides start to hurt. That was the greatest thing you've heard all day. Perhaps all week. You’re so telling that to Asriel and Sans in the morning.

Frisk continues to stand a few inches away from you, still clad in their binder, with a towel wrapped around their waist, apparently either spaced out or contemplating something.

You can never tell with them.

“Um,” they begin.

You’re getting cold standing here in your underwear. _“What.”_

“Since your friend can’t go with you, do you want me to come, for like, support or something?” they ask, and quickly add, “I understand if you don’t!”

This kid. You can’t even.

You laugh, but the sound issues more bitter than you’d intended it to. You’re not quite sure whether you’re laughing or sobbing near the end of the whole thing. You place both your hands on your hips and shake your head at them.

“Really, Frisk? Don’t you have anything better to do?”

“No?”

They tap their index finger against their chin for a second. “Well, I have homework for English, and for Chem, and a lab report to do for Bio, but I’m almost done with that. I think I have a date with MK but that’s not until Sunday, and I need to remind myself to drop History for next semester, and...”

They keep going, and you don’t have the heart to tell them that was a rhetorical fucking question. Silently, you marvel at them. You’ve known them for what, five or six weeks, and they’re ready to accompany you, through the snow, to the place where all good vibes go to die.

You know they’re charitable, trusting, and friendly, perhaps to a fault. You’ve observed that much from their interactions with others, but…

You don’t understand how. They were a foster kid like you. They still are, technically.

How did they come away from that experience without utmost contempt for the entire world and its odious population? Without a sense of self-loathing that clamps down on them whenever things seem to be going well? Without more issues than they can count on one hand?

Maybe it’s because they have siblings.

Maybe that shielded them from the worst of it, the fact that they have six of them. Get Frisk going about them, and they won’t shut up for at least an hour, taking out their phone to show you a picture of one of their sisters in a tutu.

But… if you’re remembering things correctly, Frisk is the oldest of the bunch. And having siblings, well, that complicates things more. What if you get separated? You wonder if that ever happened to them..

So, standing in the shower, washing your hair, you still don’t get it.

You don’t get them.

(You think of your life’s theory, knife-sharp, empirically tested through years of your being bounced around the foster care system, years of being kicked, punched, and smacked around, each guardian more loathsome than the last.

A full scholarship to college was your way out. As long as you take summer and winter courses, you can stay nearly the year round.

Your theory still stands.

 _In this world, it’s kill or be killed_.)

Frisk doesn’t seem to fit into either category. Yes, they’re kind, but they’re not weak. Yet, there exists something altogether warm and guileless in them that you want to preserve for as long as possible. Soapy water flows down your back while you think.

Maybe it’s a whole lot of youthful optimism, a common freshman affliction. Maybe it’s an intrinsic part of them, and they’ll still be just like this in twenty years.

Either way, you want them to prove your theory wrong. You want Papyrus and Asriel to prove your theory wrong.

But the world seldom pays kindness back with kindness, so you’ll look out for all the people who have shown you compassion, until you graduate.

Frisk, in particular. They’re the youngest, after all.

(You contemplate their previous offer to accompany you to the medical center in the morning, and wonder - in actuality - who is looking after whom.)

“Can I borrow your shampoo?” comes a voice from the stall beside yours.

After telling Frisk to think fast, you throw the bottle over the top of your stall and hope you didn’t hit them in the face.

You don’t hear any pained sounds coming from their end, so you think you’re good there.

“Thank you!”

God, you’re tired. You don’t even want to think about what time it is. Whatever time it is, you hope it’s stopped snowing.

It’s strange and pretty funny, but you actually liked winter when you were a freshman.

You were rendered awestruck by your first blizzard, shocked to learn that a snowstorm could turn campus into nothing more than a series of great rolling drifts. You and Papyrus would set to making snow sculptures. Okay, he’d make snow sculptures, and you’d spend your time lurking just out of sight and hitting Sans in the back of the head with snowballs,

Meanwhile, Undyne took snowball fights as seriously as she took swim team and engineering shit, meaning that one minute you’d have the perfect angle to hit Sans smack in the forehead, and the next, you’d have ten snowballs aimed for your center of mass.

“How’d you like that, you punk!”

She did not anticipate that you’d get up, incensed, and give her a taste of her own medicine. At the ultimate end of the fight, which had caused the both of you to miss multiple classes, Undyne shook your hand, called you a worthy adversary, and invited you over to watch anime with her and Alphys.

By your sophomore year, anytime the weather report mentioned snow, you’d groan, change the channel, and resist the urge to stab whoever shoveled your car in. Invariably, no matter where you park your car, some fucker shovels it in. You could park it on the roof, and they’d still find a way.

You hope your car is operable tomorrow, and the roads navigable, but you’re not holding your breath for all of that. It’s still way too early for Christmas miracles.

You rinse yourself off, and turn off the tap.

You make quick work of drying yourself, particularly since it’s so cold in the bathroom, gooseflesh erupting upon your arms and legs..

Then, sitting on a sink again, you put on your underwear and pajama bottoms so your feet don’t have to touch the floor. You also pull on your pajama shirt, which you’re 82% sure belonged to Napstablook at some point.

You don’t give enough of a shit about Jaytech’s music to have purchased one of his shirts.

Since there’s no one but you and Frisk in the bathroom, and you wouldn’t want to leave them alone in the land of muck and grime, even if it takes them a thousand years to wash their hair, you sit on the edge of the sink, let your head fall forward, and start to doze off.

When Frisk shakes you awake, they’re dressed in the clothes you gave them - thank God the sweater fits - with their hair wrapped up neatly in your towel. They’re even wearing your stupidly tiny flip-flops. They help you down from the sink, but before you two return to your room, there’s something you want to say to them.

“About the whole thing earlier, where you, uh…” You force yourself to keep going. “Where you said you wanted to come with me to the medical center in the morning, I mean…”

Their face has already lit up. Were this anyone but Frisk, you would have rolled your eyes at their enthusiasm and told them not to waste the kinetic energy.  
  
“If you seriously have nothing better to do,” you continue.

They swear that they don’t.

“What time do we have to be awake?” Frisk wants to know.

They try poorly to stifle a yawn.

You take a look at the clock out in the hall, which you think still works, and tells the right time. You hope it does. You wrinkle your nose. Look at the clock again. Sigh loudly.

“In about three hours,” you tell them. “If you don’t want t---”

Frisk insists that they’re going, and there’s nothing you can do about it. They even stick their tongue out at you.

You start laughing, actually laughing, over-exhausted and amused. Here you are, four-thirty in the morning, with some overly perky freshman making childish faces at you. It’s just… so ridiculous.

Everything about this is ridiculous. They start laughing too, holding onto one of your shoulders, and although your mind tells you to flinch, you don’t.

“What if we wake everyone up?” Frisk asks.

“They deserve it.”

You unlock the door to your room one-handedly. Light from the hallway floods the room, so you take Frisk by the hand, walk inside as quickly as possible, and shut the door behind you. You don't want to wake anyone up.

You’re not too surprised to note that all the lights have been turned off. Every single one but the nightlight plugged in at your bedside. You think of Asriel turning it on for you before he went to sleep, and something twinges faintly in your chest. He’s kicked off some of his sheets. You wonder if it’s your fault. If he’s having a bad dream.

As gently as you can manage, you pull the sheets back up to cover him.

Frisk climbs into your bed and stares at the ceiling again. You notice them mouthing words this time around. You sit down on the side of your bed, and fold up your knees so you can rest your chin on them. You glance around the room for a minute or two.

You turn over, and lie on your side to face Frisk, propping up your head with one hand. As it turns out, both of you can fit on this bed without being cram-jammed together.

Then, when Frisk’s mouth continues to move, though their eyes are closed now, you ask them what they’re doing.

“I’m counting.”

You raise an eyebrow.

“Counting what?”

“Counting down.”

Getting an answer that makes sense is going to be painful, you can just _tell._

“Counting down from what?”

“A thousand.”

“Why?”

“It helps me relax before I go to sleep,” they explain, eyes still shut. “Usually I’m asleep by the seven-hundreds.”

_Huh. Go figure._

“Good night, Frisk.”

“G’night, Chara.”

You roll over so your back is facing them. You rummage around your nightstand, find your phone, and set it to wake you at 7:45. You pull the covers up around you and Frisk, and stare at your little light for a moment.

A thousand, huh?

At last, you close your eyes, and begin to count in your head.

_1000..._

_999…_

_998…_

 


End file.
